This posting consists of an exchange betweem ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ and his congressional representative one David Scott (D district 13, Georgia). Mr Scott is the very same congressman seen in this video. He appears to be in "damage control" mode. The first section is the complete email I received in "response" to my concerns. Read it if you have the stomach, otherwise skip to my rejoinder:
Dear ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ:
Thank you for contacting me regarding reform of America's health care system. I appreciate your thoughts on this issue.
At the beginning of his term in office, President Obama articulated eight reforms needed to improve the health care in America. These reforms were drafted by into legislation three committees in the House of Representatives: the Ways and Means Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health. The proposed health care reform bill, titled H.R. 3200, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, would reform the current health care system to improve health care quality, price, and services. The bill is currently being debated in committee and has not reached the House floor for a vote. While I am not a member of any of the committees with jurisdiction over health care, I would like to address some of the concerns raised about the bill.
Throughout my years in public service I have continued to support initiatives that seek to ensure quality health care programs and services for the constituents I serve and finding innovative and effective ways to ensure American's access to first-rate health care and insurance options is of utmost concern. I am in support of an agenda to raise the standard of health care in this country, while also ensuring fiscal responsibility. We are experiencing a shortage of qualified medical personnel, hospitals are underfunded and experiencing budget shortages that will have ramifications for years to come, and the uninsured are inundating our nation's emergency rooms as they have no other place to go for care.
As a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I believe fundamental reform of our health care system is needed to control rising health care costs, increase quality and value, and improve access to coverage and care. However, comprehensive health care reform must be deficit-neutral and bend the cost curve in the long run. I also believe health care reform must preserve patient choice of provider and maintain competition within the marketplace. Progress has been and will continue to be difficult, but getting it right is more important than getting it done right away. Before the full House considers a bill, the Blue Dog Coalition will assess the scoring by the Congressional Budget Office and ensure it appropriately reflects the principles we have articulated. While it appears ongoing negotiations at the committee level have yielded a number of important concessions in the direction of our principles, many Blue Dogs remain concerned with various aspects of the bill draft. I remain committed to being a positive and productive influence in the process and improving the bill even further.
Reforming the current health care system is not without its controversies. Many constituents have voiced their satisfaction with their current health insurance plans and their concern that health care reforms would take away their health care choice. The cornerstone of health care reform is to improve the quality of health care not to force Americans off of their current insurance plan. If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. However, if you are one of the 47 million Americans and the18 percent of people in Georgia who are uninsured, you will be able to find high quality, affordable coverage through either a public option or various health care "co-ops" throughout the country. The public option is only one choice of many in the new Health Insurance Exchange. No one - not the government nor an employer - can force an individual or family to enroll in the public option. Many constituents have inquired whether Members of Congress will participate in the public option plan. Again, the public option plan is only for Americans without any form of health insurance and not for Americans who currently have health care. The bill also explicitly limits eligibility for subsidies to individuals who are lawfully present in the US and denies coverage to illegal immigrants.
You should know that I supported the legislation that offered health savings accounts (HSA) because it was the largest effort in many years to address some of the shortcomings of those plans. Health care has become so expensive that many employers are forced to make their employees either contribute to their coverage, or worse, pay for it all. By combining a high deductible plan with a special account into which consumers can place pre-tax dollars, HSAs will help consumers realize savings. Furthermore, some experts believe that this new option will lure many new entrants into the insurance market who lack the means for traditional coverage, such as recent college graduates who have low-paying jobs and no longer qualify for coverage. That being said HSAs do not help to address the larger problem with providing access to affordable health care for the under and uninsured in this country.
Another concern regarding health care reform is the supposed "rationing" of care and end of life services for seniors. In a recent town hall meeting with members of the AARP, President Obama addressed these questions directly by stating that the reforms will make it easier for people to fill out a living will and learn about their choices for palliative and hospice care. This counseling will be an optional service. The living will is only used if the individual has become unable to give informed consent or refusal (i.e., "individual health care instruction") due to incapacity and allows the patient and their doctor to make their own long term health care decisions.
The insurance market reforms in H.R. 3200 will also lessen the rationing of care that happens today. Insurance companies will no longer be able to retroactively cancel an enrollees' insurance policy when they become sick (unless there is fraud) or refuse to cover important medical services; patients will no longer have to split pills in half because they can't afford their prescriptions; and no one will go bankrupt because they cannot afford their prescriptions, because of extraordinarily high out-of-pocket costs for health care.
As you know, abortion is one of the most controversial public policy issues facing me and other members of Congress. Reproductive choices are deeply personal in nature and should rest with the woman, her physician, and the family or friends she chooses to consult. However, recently many constituents have expressed their belief that abortions should not be covered under any federal health care plan. Beginning in 1976, federal law banned public funding of abortions except in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment for certain federal programs such as Medicaid. The TRICARE system, which covers active and retired members of the military and their families, pays for abortions only when the mother's life is in danger. Military hospitals are not permitted to perform abortions, even if they are privately paid for, except in cases of life endangerment or rape or incest. Similarly, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which covers nine million federal workers and their dependents, is prohibited from paying for insurance coverage of abortions, with the same exceptions as those in the original 1976 law. Within the debate of health insurance reform, there has been a lot of misinformation about the federal plan and coverage of abortion procedures. Let me be clear: nothing within the legislation mandates abortion coverage.
Payment reforms are also addressed in H.R. 3200. All payment reforms in H.R .3200 carefully consider seniors' access to and quality of care. H.R. 3200 restores fiscal responsibility to payments to certain Medicare providers that are currently being overpaid relative to their costs. The payment reforms are based on recommendations from the President in his 2010 budget or from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). Some of the payment cuts to providers are reinvested back into the Medicare program, for instance to pay for closing the Part D donut hole or assistance for low-income Medicare.
As I stated before, these reforms are currently being debated in committee have not reached the House floor for a vote. We must continue to have a robust debate concerning the issue but let me clear that it is imperative that reforms be put in place in order for our country to curb the rising costs crippling families across the country. Inaction will only lead to high premiums with less coverage and will lead Americans further and further into medical debt.
Again, I thank you for sharing your views with me. I hope you will continue to give me the benefit of your opinion in the future. In addition, I encourage you to visit my web site at http://davidscott.house.gov, where you can view the latest news and obtain information on issues and legislation that is important to you. You can also sign up for my electronic newsletter, and receive periodic updates on my activities as your representative in Washington. Thank you again for contacting me, and I look forward to continuing to serve you.
Sincerely,
David Scott
Member of Congress
Dear ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ:
Thank you for contacting me regarding reform of America's health care system. I appreciate your thoughts on this issue.
At the beginning of his term in office, President Obama articulated eight reforms needed to improve the health care in America. These reforms were drafted by into legislation three committees in the House of Representatives: the Ways and Means Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health."
The sentence above is somewhat confusing but I understand and will address it. As you are aware my letter to you was in opposition to the reforms contained in HR 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 whose title is vague and deceptive as nowhere in the bill is the term "affordable" defined nor is the manner in which medical care will be improved and reduced in price without the use of government compulsion. I furthermore understand that you have not as yet been afforded the opportunity to vote on the bill but nevertheless express support for it.
"Throughout my years in public service I have continued to support initiatives that seek to ensure quality health care programs and services for the constituents I serve and finding innovative and effective ways to ensure American's access to first-rate health care and insurance options is of utmost concern."
Your desire that Americans have continued access to "quality health care" is indeed admirable. In pursuit of this desire I would assume that you have consistently introduced legislation to end arbitrary regulations designed to dictate the coverage health insurance companies offer in order that Americans can exercise "choices". I would further assume that you have supported legislation to enable private insurance companies to offer policies across state lines in order to encourage "competition".
"I am in support of an agenda to raise the standard of health care in this country, while also ensuring fiscal responsibility."
I share your wish for a higher standard of medical care here while engaging in "fiscal responsibility". Unfortunately, I have discovered to my chagrin that there is no such thing as a "free lunch". Lunches (and health care) are always paid for by "someone" and are never "free".
"We are experiencing a shortage of qualified medical personnel, hospitals are underfunded and experiencing budget shortages that will have ramifications for years to come, and the uninsured are inundating our nation's emergency rooms as they have no other place to go for care."
You are correct in your above observations. When government actions dictating in minute detail the terms of conducting business in any field including the prices for goods and services the result has historically been a shortage of the goods and services. When has it been otherwise?
"As a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I believe fundamental reform of our health care system is needed to control rising health care costs, increase quality and value, and improve access to coverage and care. However, comprehensive health care reform must be deficit-neutral and bend the cost curve in the long run."
I would be pleased to learn of ANY instance where politically driven "bending of the cost curve" has resulted in any outcome other than rationing and increased scarcity.
"I also believe health care reform must preserve patient choice of provider and maintain competition within the marketplace."
I agree wholeheartedly with you. A good start for such reform would be the removal of regulations prohibiting insurers from offering policies across state lines and adopting tort reform to reduce frivolous malpractice lawsuits. The introduction of the so called "public option" is in fact a means to eliminate competition. When one competing party need not make a profit and in fact is able to raise capital through its monopoly of the printing press and use of force, "competition" is driven from the market.
"I remain committed to being a positive and productive influence in the process and improving the bill even further.
Many constituents have voiced their satisfaction with their current health insurance plans and their concern that health care reforms would take away their health care choice."
I am indeed one of those "constituents". With the implementation of the "public option" our concerns are indeed valid.
Your 47 million "uninsured" figure has been shown to include 12 to 20 million illegal aliens as well as those who choose not to purchase medical insurance and those who are between jobs. In order to determine the advisability of tampering with the finest medical system on the planet, a determination of the true number of those who desire insurance and are unable to obtain it should be made rather than proceeding to use governmental duress to adopt a one size fits all system as envisioned by HR 3200.
"If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan."
The above statement ignores the inevitable scenario that my medical insurer will be driven into bankruptcy by being unable to compete with a government which operates the money printing presses, raises capital through the IRS and writes the rules of the game.
"Many constituents have inquired whether Members of Congress will participate in the public option plan. Again, the public option plan is only for Americans without any form of health insurance and not for Americans who currently have health care."
Mr. Scott, you are intelligent enough to understand the fatuousness of the above statement. The "gold plated" medical insurance plans enjoyed by those who wield political power in DC will of course continue as cost is not a consideration. Political operatives need not "negotiate" the terms but simply enact them as perquisites of office by legislative fiat. It would appear that this issue has struck a chord with a growing bloc of the voting public. As a corollary, (one would hope) the distinct possibility exists that members of the political establishment, in order to continue enjoying the perquisites of power will "bend their ideological agenda curves" in their own interest.
Of course this entire "debate" proceeds from the premise that the federal government is delegated the power to intervene in the matter of our health care. I can find no such delegation in my copy of the Constitution or its 27 Amendments. Indeed, this issue along with 95% of the contents of the Federal Register relies on a tortured interpretation of the Commerce Clause (Article I section 8) which has in effect mooted the entire document and transferred issues of a legal nature to the political arena.
I hope you will understand my decision to make this communication in the form of an open letter. You may also be assured I will continue to follow these issues and others before the Congress.
Sincerely
ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ
Douglasville, GA
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